Challenging Patriarchy presents contributions to the evolution of thinking on men and masculinities in Gender and Development, drawing on three IDS Bulletins published over a period of more than a decade: Men, Masculinities and Development(2000), edited by Andrea Cornwall and Sarah White, Sexuality Matters (2006), edited by Andrea Cornwall and Susie Jolly, and Undressing Patriarchy (20014) edited by Jerker Edström, Abhijit Das and Chris Dolan.

Men, Masculinities and Development addressed a vital disjuncture in the emerging field of men and masculinity studies: a turn to the personal that was decoupled from the political, resulting in a lack of attention to the structural implications of male privilege. In engaging with the 'queering of development', Sexuality Matters queried the heteronormative assumptions of gender and development and explored the politics and erotics of male same-sex and trans sexualities with a development lens. Returning to and amplifying the structural preoccupations of the 2000 Bulletin, Undressing Patriarchy grappled with the feminist concept of patriarchy by connecting perspectives from feminist, sexual rights and masculinities fields to address questions of intersectionality and structures of constraint to gender equality.